At this point, Trump really should fire all his appointees and camp followers and start over. He won't because he lives for this shit but it is what a prudent leader would do.
I've been surprised and heartened at how many liberals have come out and said this it not okay.
If you think a president is so badly compromised due to stupidity, ignorance, corruption, whatever, you need to say so publicly and attempt to get him removed from office. You don't quietly sabotage him. Establishing a norm where the executive branch tries to thwart the president's will because they are unwilling to use the mechanisms provided by the Constitution is not okay. We have an answer and the means through which to remove him. Either try that way or resign publicly and let the world know you are resigning because the president is insane.
Yep.
Pretty much every thing that is happening with this shit show is just another mark in the win column for Putin. The US executive branch is now directly comparable to a country like Turkey or Egypt. People are going to scream "exaggeration!" but it is anything but. You simply can't have military overstepping and thwarting civilian leadership, or POTUS-appointed officials ignoring or overstepping the decisions of POTUS, or even making their own via proxy. It's completely untenable.
And you can't just remove POTUS in this case. You can't allow for some sort of tolerance for this behavior because of "special circumstances." The person(s) responsible for this are openly admitting to all sorts of obstruction for the simple sake of "I believe in my party--not my country." It is absolutely unfathomable. It is a tacit admission that "we knew this guy was an unhinged loon all along, but we needed him anyway if only to continue our savage raping of the American public. Rest assured--we are doing and will do better to control him, all the while you just bend over and take what we give you until this blows over"
NYT is stuck because they are bound by ethics to protect their source, but this kind of activity is a clear and present threat to our democracy.
But, but but...... he hired only the best people.At this point, Trump really should fire all his appointees and camp followers and start over. He won't because he lives for this shit but it is what a prudent leader would do.
I've been surprised and heartened at how many liberals have come out and said this it not okay.
If you think a president is so badly compromised due to stupidity, ignorance, corruption, whatever, you need to say so publicly and attempt to get him removed from office. You don't quietly sabotage him. Establishing a norm where the executive branch tries to thwart the president's will because they are unwilling to use the mechanisms provided by the Constitution is not okay. We have an answer and the means through which to remove him. Either try that way or resign publicly and let the world know you are resigning because the president is insane.
You guys deserve credit for saying this. Regardless of how anyone feels about Trump, this is not the way to go about taking him down, and if anything fuels his deep state narrative.
We don’t need a shadow government “that knows better”.
I also can’t help but notice the timing of this relative to the Kavanaugh hearings. This story is eclipsing even the gauntlet Booker threw down today.
Yep..bravery not found;
Benjamin Wittes said it best on Twitter:
"I have no respect for someone who would say these things - of whose truth I have no doubt - in an anonymous oped, rather than in a public resignation letter copied to the House Judiciary Committee."
I also empathize with the politician who, finding themselves in the middle of the swamp, feels that they are left with two choices: speak up and quit or be fired, and be replaced by a dangerous, anti-Democracy Trump-selected know-nothing, or stay and try to preserve the Republic through this crisis. The author of this letter is no hero, and is in fact engaging in some action that threatens our very idea of a Democracy. However, I can also understand the conclusion that this is the lesser evil.
You guys deserve credit for saying this. Regardless of how anyone feels about Trump, this is not the way to go about taking him down, and if anything fuels his deep state narrative.
We don’t need a shadow government “that knows better”.
I also can’t help but notice the timing of this relative to the Kavanaugh hearings. This story is eclipsing even the gauntlet Booker threw down today.
The issue I have is that we have a cabal in the white house, apparently running things, that weren't elected.
Its simply not good enough to maintain things behind closed doors.
The 25th for the 45th
Ooooh! Oooh! Shadow government & shit! You've apparently never worked in a bureaucracy.
You know its ok to beat your wife as long as you bought her a nice house.But those tax cuts .. and SC judges, tastes so fiiiiiiiine.
Democracy dies in broad daylight.
You guys deserve credit for saying this. Regardless of how anyone feels about Trump, this is not the way to go about taking him down, and if anything fuels his deep state narrative.
We don’t need a shadow government “that knows better”.
I also can’t help but notice the timing of this relative to the Kavanaugh hearings. This story is eclipsing even the gauntlet Booker threw down today.
I have, and bureaucracies tend to have very tedious procedures for handling these sort of things to prevent innuendo, misinformation and opportunismOoooh! Oooh! Shadow government & shit! You've apparently never worked in a bureaucracy.
Yes, but that one reckless idiot is feeding his flock a narrative around a deep state conspiracy against him since day one, and media bias against him...and this story is of an insider (derp state) leaking information to the NYT’s (media)I used to have a similar opinion of bureaucracy until I was in a couple years in at a management job at this monster megacorp (and one that is particularly infamous for it bureaucracy). And then suddenly it occurred to me that the reason bureaucracy is tolerated is to hopefully prevent some reckless idiot, who imagines he knows better than everyone else, from causing half a million people to lose their jobs.
Now with the US, we're talking about one reckless idiot who imagines he knows better than everyone else and 320 million American lives.
I used to have a similar opinion of bureaucracy until I was in a couple years in at a management job at this monster megacorp (and one that is particularly infamous for it bureaucracy). And then suddenly it occurred to me that the reason bureaucracy is tolerated is to hopefully prevent some reckless idiot, who imagines he knows better than everyone else, from causing half a million people to lose their jobs.
Now with the US, we're talking about one reckless idiot who imagines he knows better than everyone else and 320 million American lives.
Yeah but it also used "first principles" which Mattis has used many times. That's why I think this is someone from the National Security sphere. They were smart enough to employ different attributes to spread the suspicion around.I think it's hilarious that, because of the use of the word "lodestar," people are saying Pense wrote it...
Now he MIGHT be the only one in the administration who's known for use of that word, but rofl...someone who pays attention would know that, and could use it to send the "witch hunt" in a false direction.
You mean the swamp he "previously drained" & filled with even more swampiness? Sounds like a sound plan...what could go wrong? /sSoooo.... you are saying he needs to drain the swamp??
I am the real Resistance, the Resistance within the Trump administration
When you think of the Resistance, you probably don’t think of a group of senior Trump administration officials. But, you see, that is your mistake. That is exactly what I am, and I am resisting more than any of you, in your hats with your signs.
You may ask: Is President Trump a threat to this country and all that it stands for?
Absolutely. Yes.
We are all continually traumatized. I don’t know how we are going to get through each week.
Trump is completely amoral. Furthermore, he has the memory of a gnat that has recently stunned itself by flying into a windshield. Furthermore, during Cabinet meetings, he is often to be found asking embarrassingly basic questions about things such as What Is The Federal Reserve, Though? and Why Can’t We Just Assassinate People? and Why Are We in Afghanistan, Again? (Unlike his predecessors, wise and sensible men, he would not take “just because” as a suitable answer to the third question.) Also, for the first six months of the administration he referred to me as Shouty Dave for no reason I could discern; Dave is not my name, and I do not usually shout.
[Greg Sargent: Trump’s paranoid rage is getting worse. But the White House ‘resistance’ is a sham.]
We leave every meeting having aged eight years. Horror turns our faces even whiter than usual (and they started off pretty white). I entered this administration a comparatively young man/woman; now I am broken and bent with sorrow, and my liver is giving out. Everything he says terrifies me. Every day he could usher in World War III. We tell him this, and it is like water off the back of a duck that has access to the nuclear codes.
I would like to publish this in a newspaper so that someone will read it and feel that there is a steady hand on the tiller, sometimes, except when obviously there isn’t. If I get fired by tweet, please know that I stand proudly by these words. My name is Unnamed Trump Administration Official Who Wished To Remain on Background.
But the point is, do not worry. I am here, and I am secretly in charge, kind of, I hope, except when the president takes any action on the public stage over which I have no control, which is quite often, but not ALL the time. That is my point. Sometimes, the administration does something that I would like it to do, and we should all cling to that, like a mariner to a floating sign post that says “IMMIGRANTS NOT WELCOME AND LOOK AT ALL THIS DEREGULATION.”
Trump is wrong to say that he is surrounded by a deep state of people working and conspiring to undermine his policies at every turn. He is surrounded by a steady state of people working and conspiring to undermine his policies at every turn, except for those that involve deregulation and stopping Certain People from coming here, which we are all for.
I am not part of the Resistance you think of when you think of the Resistance. I walk through marches with an expression of irritation, and I disdain women and pink hats. The two in tandem are more than I can bear. My biggest complaint about the Trump administration is that the president keeps changing his mind and is less efficient than could be hoped. I do feel that he has done a lot of good things, although I am also terrified that this nightmare straw man full of only bile and bad impulses will maybe do something bad. But he might not! After all, I am there watching him, powerless to stop him unless he is not paying attention.
[Max Boot: We’re in uncharted waters. Don’t be too quick to condemn ‘Deep State Throat.’]
But I have been resisting as best I know how. I often knock papers off his desk to prevent him from signing them. Once I stuffed an entire memo in my mouth while his back was turned. Another day I knew that it would startle and confuse him to learn that there was such a person as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, so I ran through the White House devouring every newspaper I could see. One day he picked up a red phone and said, “I would like to Start World War III, please, I don’t care with whom,” and if it had not been for me on the other line pretending to be a dial tone, who can say what would have happened. It is these little things that make all the difference between the unimaginable chaos you see and an unimaginable worse chaos. Once in a meeting he became upset because I made a positive remark about John McCain, and we had to pretend that he had force-choked me to death. My limp form was carried out by aides. But fortunately the next day, he had forgotten, and I was able to keep my position. After Vice President Pence and his rabbit did something that bothered him, we told him that Pence had been sent to the cornfield. Sometimes I call his phone pretending to be the president of France so that he can yell at me and not our ally. He derailed the last meeting we had by making truck noises, and he would not stop even when asked nicely by several other senior officials who will also remain nameless. I am positive he thinks NAFTA is a naughty word for a body part and NATO is a kind of expensive fruit. Honestly, I don’t know what he thinks. Sometimes I think his mind is just a loose marble rolling around and if he tilts his head to one side you can hear it. He spent a whole Cabinet meeting asking us what an updog was. Once he made Sean Spicer eat an entire chocolate cake.
The president is completely venal and displays all the worst excesses of the Bad Popes but also Henry VIII during his worst years. He is surrounded by spiders and wolves and other large predators. But I am also there! That is what I am trying to get at. I am there too, which should reassure you.
We should definitely invoke the 25th Amendment, I think, but then I think: Wouldn’t it might be worth it if we got to deregulate just a little bit more and make immigrating to this country a little more difficult and painful? Of course it would. Right. We can all agree.
The point is, I think it is America’s fault for letting this happen to it. We were, I think, asking for something like this. I wish more people were like McCain.
But don’t worry. I am there. I keep thinking we should maybe say something, anonymously, but then I think, what if I just said something more, anonymously.
I am part of the real resistance: the Trump administration. That is what I have persuaded myself to think. Doesn’t that reassure you?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-trump-administration/?utm_term=.8bc20a8e0bea
Yeah no. They see it as a stab in the back only. It's all lies made up by the NYT you see. The Deep State is doing this don't you know. They see it as all orchestrated all along since everyone for over a year has said the same things about the chaos, dysfunction and inability for rational though on Trump's part.Not so much that Trump has been outed to the majority of Americans who already see Trump for who he really is, but this op/ed surely must have been a stab in the chest to Trump's supporters. It really is a confirmation of Trump's unfitness for office that his supporters must now have to face up to, a painful wake up call of sorts that even insiders who were supposedly intimately loyal to Trump have turned on him because he is an actual present threat to the security of the nation.
Is it possible that it was decided by Trump's inner circle that outing Trump in this way was the most effective means to firmly put Trump in his place so as to wrest control of the White House away from him and thus force Trump to listen to reason, turn him into a mere figurehead and very much so a way to terminally cut off Putin's influence over Trump thus the nation he leads?